GitHub Copilot is shaking up how developers write code, but trying to figure out its pricing plans can feel like untangling a messy legacy system. With recent changes, like the new "premium request" limits, understanding what you’re actually paying for is more important than ever. If you’re wondering whether Copilot is worth the investment or just a lot of hype, you’ve come to the right place.
This guide will walk you through each GitHub Copilot pricing tier, explain what you get (including the sneaky costs), and help you figure out if it’s the right move for you or your team. Let’s dive in.
What is GitHub Copilot?
Imagine an AI pair programmer that hangs out in your code editor, whether you’re using VS Code or a JetBrains IDE. That’s GitHub Copilot. It’s way more than a smart autocomplete; it’s an assistant that actually gets the context of what you’re building. As you type, it suggests everything from single lines to entire functions. It can even help you write tests, squash bugs, and pick up a new programming language without constantly switching tabs.
Developed by GitHub and OpenAI, Copilot learned its skills by analyzing a huge amount of public code from GitHub repositories. The whole point is to make developers more productive by getting rid of the repetitive, boilerplate tasks we all hate. Instead of searching Stack Overflow for the fifth time to remember a specific syntax, you can let Copilot suggest the code for you. This frees you up to focus on the hard stuff: solving actual problems and creating great software.
A detailed breakdown of GitHub Copilot pricing plans
GitHub has set up its pricing to work for just about everyone, from solo coders to startups and big companies. The final price tag depends on your team size, the features you need, and how much you lean on its more powerful AI models.
Let’s break down the Individual (Pro), Business, and Enterprise plans to see what’s what.
GitHub Copilot pricing: Individual (and Pro) plan
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Cost: $10 per user, per month (or $100 per year if you pay annually).
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Who it’s for: This plan is built for individual developers, freelancers, students, and open-source contributors.
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Key Features: You get the main AI-powered code suggestions, support for dozens of languages, and it works right inside your favorite IDEs and the command line.
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Free Access: It’s worth pointing out that GitHub Copilot is free for verified students, teachers, and maintainers of popular open-source projects. It’s a nice touch that gives back to the community.
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Limitations: This plan is strictly for one person. You don’t get any team management tools or extra security features. It also has a lower cap on "premium requests," which can be a real snag if you rely on its best features. We’ll get into what that means in a bit.
GitHub Copilot pricing: Business plan
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Cost: $19 per user, per month.
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Who it’s for: This tier is aimed at small to mid-sized teams that need better control and collaboration tools.
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Key Features: It comes with everything in the Individual plan, plus organization-wide policy management, a central place to manage users, and IP indemnity protection.
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Data Privacy: A big plus here is that your code snippets and prompts aren’t used to train the public AI models, which is a must-have for any business that cares about its intellectual property.
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Copilot Chat: This plan gives you access to Copilot Chat inside the IDE, which turns your editor into a conversational assistant for debugging, explaining code, and generating tests.
GitHub Copilot pricing: Enterprise plan
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Cost: $39 per user, per month.
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Who it’s for: This is the all-in-one plan for large companies with tight security, compliance, and customization needs.
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Key Features: You get everything from the Business plan, plus some seriously powerful extras. This includes Copilot Chat on GitHub.com, which is personalized to your company’s private codebase. It also gives you automated pull request summaries and connects to Bing search to get the latest info from the web.
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Requirement: The only catch is that you need a GitHub Enterprise Cloud subscription to be eligible for this plan.
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Higher Limits: It includes a much higher monthly allowance for premium requests, which is better for power users and larger teams.
GitHub Copilot pricing comparison table
Here’s a simple table to help you compare the plans side-by-side.
| Feature | Individual (Pro) | Business | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $10/user/month | $19/user/month | $39/user/month |
| Core AI Code Suggestions | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| IDE & CLI Support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| User Management | No | No | Yes |
| IP Indemnity | No | Yes | Yes |
| Copilot Chat in IDE | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Copilot Chat on GitHub.com | No | No | Yes |
| PR Summaries | No | No | Yes |
| Premium Requests / month | 300 | 300 | 1,000 |
The hidden costs of GitHub Copilot pricing: understanding features, limits, and "premium requests"
The monthly price doesn’t quite tell the whole story. GitHub recently introduced "premium requests," which has made its pricing a bit more complicated. If you’re not careful, you could run into unexpected costs or find your favorite features are suddenly unavailable until your next billing cycle.
What are premium requests in GitHub Copilot pricing?
Not all AI models are the same, and GitHub Copilot uses a few different ones to run its features. Basic code completions from the standard models are generally unlimited. But when you use the more powerful, state-of-the-art models or advanced features, you start burning through your "premium requests."
And here’s where it gets tricky: different models and features use up requests at different rates. For example, a single question to a top-tier model might cost you 50 requests from your monthly allowance. This change caught a lot of people off guard, with some users complaining on forums that GitHub "simply made the Pro plan worse." It’s a heads-up that you need to watch which features you’re using to avoid hitting your monthly cap of 300 premium requests on the Pro and Business plans.
How Copilot Chat affects GitHub Copilot pricing
Copilot Chat is an interactive AI assistant you can talk to right inside your IDE. It’s one of the most useful features you get with a paid plan, and it’s where you’ll likely spend most of those premium requests.
You can use it for things like:
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Explaining code: Just highlight a confusing function and ask, "What is this doing?"
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Generating tests: Tell it to "write unit tests for this function."
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Debugging: Paste an error message and ask for ideas on how to fix it.
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Learning: Ask general programming questions without having to open a browser.
For many teams, Copilot Chat alone is worth the upgrade. It changes Copilot from a tool that just gives you suggestions into a real partner in your workflow.
Is the GitHub Copilot pricing worth it for your team?
So, the big question: does the productivity boost actually justify the cost? Honestly, it depends on who you are and what you do. GitHub Copilot is an amazing tool, but it was designed for one job: helping developers write code.
The clear ROI of GitHub Copilot pricing for development teams
For most software teams, the answer is a definite yes. The time saved from writing boilerplate, looking up docs, and getting junior developers up to speed adds up fast. Reports and developer feedback consistently point to big productivity gains. When Copilot handles the boring stuff, developers can stay focused longer and tackle the creative, complex problems that actually move the needle. In that light, the monthly fee often pays for itself in just a few hours.
This video puts GitHub Copilot’s premium features to the test to help you decide if the Pro plan is worth the price.Beyond GitHub Copilot pricing: The rise of specialized AI for other teams
This is where you hit Copilot’s main limitation: it’s a tool for developers, period. It lives in the IDE and speaks the language of code. It can’t answer a customer support ticket, fix an IT problem, or find information in your company’s internal documents.
So, how do you give that same AI-powered boost to your customer support or IT teams? That’s where specialized AI platforms like eesel AI come into play.
Think of eesel AI as the "Copilot for your customer-facing teams." While GitHub Copilot is working its magic in the IDE, eesel AI plugs directly into the tools your support and IT teams use every day, like their help desks.
eesel AI delivers a similar promise of speed and automation but is built specifically for support tasks. It learns from your entire knowledge base, including past tickets, internal wikis like Confluence or Google Docs, and your help center. With all that context, it can resolve customer tickets on its own, draft accurate replies for your agents, and answer internal questions in a snap. And unlike some tools that take months to set up, you can get eesel AI running in minutes and even test its performance on your past tickets to see the value before you go all in.
GitHub Copilot pricing: Choosing the right AI copilot for the right job
GitHub Copilot’s pricing is pretty clear once you lay it all out. With plans for individuals, teams, and enterprises, you can pick one that fits, with costs running from $10 to $39 per user each month. The main thing is to understand what each plan offers and keep an eye on those "premium request" limits to keep your costs in check.
At the end of the day, GitHub Copilot is a fantastic tool for any modern development team. But building a truly efficient company means giving every team the right AI assistant for their work.
If you’re a developer, the GitHub Copilot Business plan probably offers the best mix of features and team tools.
If you’re looking to give your support and IT teams an AI agent that works with your existing setup, see how eesel AI can automate your frontline support.
Frequently asked questions
The key difference between Individual and Business is team management and IP protection. The Business plan prevents your code snippets from being used to train public models and includes IP indemnity, which is crucial for most companies.
Yes, GitHub typically offers a one-time 30-day free trial for the Copilot Individual plan. This lets you test all the features in your own workflow before deciding if the monthly subscription is right for you.
Since basic code completions are unlimited, be mindful of how often you use advanced features like Copilot Chat. GitHub doesn’t currently charge overages; instead, access to premium features may be temporarily limited until your next billing cycle begins.
No, the annual discount ($100/year instead of $120) is currently only available for the GitHub Copilot Individual plan. The Business and Enterprise plans are billed strictly on a monthly per-user basis.
You should consider the Enterprise plan when your organization needs AI personalized to your private codebase and advanced features like PR summaries. The higher cost is justified by deep integration with your company’s internal knowledge and stricter security controls.
The Business and Enterprise plans are quite flexible as they are billed monthly per user. You can easily add or remove seats from your organization’s subscription as your team size changes, and your bill will be adjusted accordingly.
